The Main Chapel of the Durres Amphitheater: Decoration and Chronology

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Departmental Papers (Classical Studies)
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Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture
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Classical Archaeology and Art History
Classics
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Mitchell, John
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The amphitheater at Durres in central Albania is one of the larger and better preserved amphitheaters of the Roman world, as well as one of the eastern-most examples of the amphitheater form. Nonetheless, it is not for its Roman architecture that the building is best known, but its later Christian decoration, specifically, a series of mosaics which adorn the walls of a small chapel inserted into the amphitheater's Roman fabric. First published by Vangel Toçi in 1971, these mosaics were introduced to a wider scholarly audience through their inclusion in Robin Cormack's groundbreaking 1985 volume Writing in Gold. Despite the mosaics general renowned, however, they have been studied largely as membra disjecta, cut off from their surrounding context, both architectural and decorative.

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2009-01-01
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Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome: Antique
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At the time of publication, author Kimberly Bowes was affiliated with Cornell University. Currently, she is a faculty member at the Classical Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania.
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